All eyes are on Juan Soto this MLB offseason, and the free agent slugger could choose a team in just a few days.
Mega agent Scott Boras indicated his client’s free agency is entering its final stages while speaking to reporters on Tuesday, saying Soto had begun eliminating teams from the process. From ESPN:
“When you go through these things, you just have a lot of information to melt through,” Boras said during Blake Snell’s introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium. “We’ve had meetings with a number of franchises. He’s started eliminating teams and doing things. Juan is a very methodical thinker, so we’ll see. I don’t think anything is imminent in the near future. “
While Boras worded his update by claiming he didn’t expect anything in the near future, ESPN reports a decision could come by the end of the week. That would be right before the start of the MLB winter meetings.
As for the kind of money Soto could bring in, The Athletic reports that he has offers of at least $600 million from all of his remaining contenders. The teams currently known to play him are still the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays. The Athletic also reports that he expects Soto to make his decision by the end of the winter meetings.
So $600 million is the floor for Soto. The bigger question mark is of course the ceiling.
Will Juan Soto surpass Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million?
Shohei Ohtani’s ten-year, $700 million contract remains the largest known contract in sports history.
Soto isn’t expected to come close to Ohtani’s average annual net worth of $70 million, but in terms of total money, it seems entirely possible. His deal will almost certainly be more valuable than Ohtani’s, adjusted for inflation; MLB calculates that Ohtani’s deal is worth about $460 million for luxury tax purposes.
But people mostly care about the sheer number. That Soto has already made multiple $600 million offers is a good sign that $700 million will come in – or has already come in – but a $100 million difference is still a long distance to travel.
There are numerous moving parts that will decide where Soto lands with Ohtani. He has the advantage of being more than three years younger than Ohtani, but there is no indication he is willing to undercut the numbers by accepting a reprieve. There’s also the possibility of opt-outs, which would make teams more reluctant to open the checkbook if they only got three or four years from him.
But most of all, Soto doesn’t have the built-in economic advantages of Ohtani, who rakes in millions in Japanese advertising dollars just by walking across the field in a Dodger uniform. Soto is a great player, but Soto is the national hero of the country with the third largest economy in the world.
We still don’t know if Soto will make $700 million, but at the very least, he’s a good place to be the subject of a bidding war between all of MLB’s most heavily funded players.
